Heretofore, greeting cards have commonly been supplied to the consumer in paper form or in a combination of materials consisting of primarily paper and plastic. Such greeting cards require use of paper so as to provide a writing surface. Unfortunately, wide-spread use of paper products depletes an important natural resource, namely trees. Further, paper greetings cards are commonplace, and therefore a greeting card manufactured from any other material would naturally be considered by a recipient as innovative, exciting, unique, and thoughtful.
When considering, therefore, a material other than paper that would be suitable for use as a greeting card, it is important for such a material to have a writing surface and to be easily folded. Plastic sheet material can be folded, for example by using a technique taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,449 to Seufert on Sep. 7, 1982. However, plastic sheet materials do not absorb or retain ink and therefore cannot be used as a writing surface. While some manufacturers of such cards provide an additional paper sheet inside such a folded plastic sheet, such an additional paper sheet is a clumsy, unattractive solution. Further, it is difficult to inexpensively adhere such paper sheets to plastic sheets effectively.
Clearly, then, there is a need for a transparent, plastic greeting card that is easily folded using a variety of processes, yet also provides a writing surface that easily retains ink, lead, and the like. Such a needed card would allow multiple plastic pages to be used, and could be folded in such a way that the card would tend to stay open if opened or closed if closed. Such a needed card, further, could be manufactured from a readily recyclable material. Still further, such a needed greeting card would allow a variety of colorful and artistic artwork, messages, and other indicia to be printed or otherwise adhered thereon. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides further related advantages.